WARSAW - Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland's main opposition party whose support the government would need to eventually join the euro zone, said on Thursday adopting the common currency now would be economic suicide.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who won four more years in power in an Oct. 9 election, had originally aimed to take Poland into the euro zone in 2012 but the global financial crisis forced him to scrap the plan.
With the euro zone struggling to overcome an acute sovereign debt crisis, the issue is now on the back burner but Tusk says adopting the euro remains Poland’s strategic goal as it would promote deeper integration with wealthier western Europe.
Despite his election win, Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party will still require the support of at least several lawmakers of Kaczynski’s right-wing, eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) party to change the Polish constitution, as required, to join the euro.
"When it comes to entering the euro zone (…) there are no conditions at all for that at this point, this would be economic suicide," Kaczynski told a news conference when asked about a proposal by a small leftist party to join promptly.
In the past, Kaczynski has said Poland should only join the 17-member euro zone when it closes the wealth gap with western Europe and has said this could take more than a decade.
Poland is currently somewhat less than two thirds as rich as the EU average.
Together with all other parties other than PiS, Tusk is still four votes short of a two-thirds majority in the 460-strong lower chamber of parliament required to change the constitution.
Poland’s charter now recognises the Polish zloty as the sole currency and says only the Polish central bank can conduct monetary policy — a prerogative that would go to the European Central Bank if Poland entered the euro.
